Assessment of drug prescribing pattern in schizophrenia in a tertiary care hospital in South India

Abstract

Background: Irrational use of medicines is a global problem and the World Health Organization (WHO) states various factors that are necessary to curb irrationality of prescriptions. The WHO emphasizes on various steps such as prescribing medications according to the patient clinical need, right dose with adequate period of time, and lowest cost to them and their community. Aims and Objectives: The objective was to assess the rationality of atypical antipsychotics prescribed in the psychiatry outpatient department in a tertiary care hospital in India. Materials and Methods: The study was a cross-sectional descriptive study. 136 prescriptions of schizophrenia patients were collected and checked for rationality using the prescribing indicators formulated by the WHO. Results: The average number of drugs per encounter was 2.28. The drugs prescribed by generic name and from an essential drug list (EDL) were 79.4% and 45.5%, respectively. Percentage of encounters with injection was 21.8%. Conclusion: Overall, the prescriptions adhered to the indicators defined by the WHO but slight variations were seen in the average number of drugs prescribed and the drugs from an EDL. This may be due to various reasons such as side effect of drugs, socioeconomic reasons, and other technical difficulties.